NEW YORK TIMES CO. GETS $100M-PLUS BID FOR BOSTON GLOBE

[DonViejo]

The Wall Street Journal’s Keach Hagey reports the New York Times Co. received a bid for the Boston Globe of over $100 million last month from a group that includes former Boston Globe and GateHouse Media New England president Rick Daniels and the managing director of Boston Post Partners. The bid remains on the table.

The Times has been in quiet talks with the group for the past year, according to Hagey. “Times Co. Chief Financial Officer Jim Follo facilitated the talks throughout the year by helping the prospective buyers undertake due diligence,” she writes.

The group submitted a formal bid that included the assumption of between $35 million and $45 million of liabilities connected with the Globe’s non-qualified pension plan, in which senior company executives participate. The Times Co. would have kept the larger pension obligations for the rest of the Globe employees on its books, the people said. That would suggest the cash payment the Times would receive could be only around $70 million.

Hagey is told by several sources that the Times was hoping Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp would make an offer for the Globe, “but News Corp.’s ownership of a television station in Boston would rule out purchase of the Globe, given regulatory rules that prohibit companies owning a newspaper and a TV station in the same market.”

* NYT Co. offered more than $100 million for Boston Globe (wsj.com/sub.-required)
* Car dealer Ernie Boch Jr. wants to buy the Globe (jimromenesko.com)

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http://jimromenesko.com/2013/02/22/nyt-gets-100m-bid-for-globe/

[DFW]

1. The silencing of the Globe as a strong progressive voice would be a low blow to New England

Despite Barnacle and Jacoby as reactionary "balance," the Boston Globe has been a beacon of progressive print journalism for many, many decades. May it remain that way, and may it remain out of Murdoch's hands as long as there is just one of the Murdoch family left alive.